In networks where hosts are mobile, the success of real-time sensitive services like VoIP telephony, video, and others rests heavily on the matter of how seamless a handover can be made. The IETF Mobile IP solution supports best effort handovers with potential service disruption, and the variations of Mobile IP (Hierarchical MIP and Fast Handover) attempt to reduce the packet loss and latency but do not address real-time service disruption.
In an IP context, perfect seamlessness means that mobility would not impact the user of IP based services with any reduction in the quality of the service received. The service quality offered at any new access node is a balance between the capabilities of the node and the service quality requirements of the user's active sessions. Enabling solutions for seamless mobility are required.